


When Tomorrow Comes

by the_pen_is_mightier



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: (stay safe), (they don't sing), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Forbidden Love, French names, Human AU, Humor, Les Mis AU, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, and the rest turns out fine despite this fic's basis, graphic depictions of France, les mis-typical discussions of police violence, my deepest apologies to the French, one (1) character death at the beginning, sometimes, swordfights and daring rescues, trans girl Newt, witch newt, yeah I'm jumping on that headcanon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24291631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_pen_is_mightier/pseuds/the_pen_is_mightier
Summary: And if you fall, as Lucifer fell - the flame, the sword!A convict from the chain gang, hoping for a new life. A policeman born inside a jail, desperate to see the world in black and white. A neglected child. A group of students with nothing to lose. An impending war between the high and the low. And a strange, startling collection of witches.This is the story of the wretched. This is the story of the hopeful.This is a love story.(Updates Wednesdays)
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Warlock Dowling, Warlock Dowling/Adam Young
Comments: 56
Kudos: 54





	1. In The Beginning

Crowley’s first response was terror. When the whistle screamed through the evening fog, when its panicked follow-up stumbled a moment after - _“Police!”_ \- he couldn’t stop it; it burst up from its place lurking in his ribs, a dark squirming mass, and set his heart pounding. It was never far away even now.

_They’ve found me - they’ve come for me - they’re taking me back!_

He spun around from his position facing the water, hands already up in some futile attempt to defend himself. He saw swords, for a moment, saw the muzzles of rifles, saw looming and menacing faces clad in their dark uniform - but they were only visions. He was alone on the dock. His heart didn’t slow, though, as he peered through the mist. Where had the whistle come from?

He flinched as it sounded again. Somewhere to his right. Far enough away, he realized now, that it couldn’t possibly be meant for him.

Crowley let out a breath. Someone else. 

“Paranoid,” he muttered, and wrapped his cloak more tightly around him. It had been years since his release, years since he’d come to Montreuil-sur-mer under his new name. At some point he should have settled into himself, grown comfortable with his stable roof, his warm clothes, his regular meals; at some point he should have stopped jumping at shadows. But even now, as he set out across the docks to investigate, his heartbeat hadn’t entirely slowed to normal. 

He’d been out on a walk to clear his head. On cold, damp days like this, the filth and the stink of the town’s center grew too much for him, and he sought out the slightly cleaner air by the water; still choked with sewage and trash, but at least the air moved. At least he could catch a tiny breeze on his cheek and remind himself he wasn’t trapped somewhere cramped and airless. He wasn’t usually disturbed here. There wasn’t usually enough activity to draw police this far out from the streets.

Maybe it was a bad idea, he thought, to go seeking out the source of this arrest. Maybe he should hurry back to his office and pretend not to have been out. But his feet were already speeding up as muffled shouts became audible up ahead.

 _Who’ve they caught?_ If not him, some other poor soul, some other petty thief. He didn’t slow.

It snuck up on him. When at last he was able to see the scene through the fog, clearly enough at least to understand what he’d just stumbled into, it was already all around him. He was already in the center of a chaos of women, clad in rags and hunched over smoke-belching cauldrons, running now in every direction with shawls full of bright-colored bottles, scarves covering their heads to obscure their identities. 

He froze. 

_Witches._

The frightened shouts of the women, mixed with barked commands from out-of-sight policemen - _“Freeze! Put your potions down! Stand together!”_ \- echoed against the mist that still hung above Crowley and pooled at his feet. Disoriented, Crowley looked around for something to ground him. Where were the police? Where had they come from? Who had they already apprehended?

He’d known there was a witching den somewhere in the town for a while now, but breaking them up wasn’t really part of his duties. They did no one any harm, despite all the accusations of godlessness and evil flung against them - he’d been content to leave them alone.

_“Hand over the bottles, now!”_

Of course his police force wasn’t. 

A woman dashed by him, her arms clamped over an overstuffed and spilling bundle of herbs. A moment later a policeman materialized from the same direction; a man with broad shoulders and a flat, blank face, eyes squinted in the dimness. He had his baton out and ready in his hand. He pointed at Crowley; his expression betrayed no recognition. “Did a witch just come through here?”

Crowley didn’t think - he never thought about anything, that was one of his problems. He shook his head. “Where - where are the police coming from?”

“We have the den surrounded.” The man’s eyes narrowed further. “Are you a patron of this heathenish establishment?” 

Crowley spread his arms, showing the clothes he wore beneath his cloak. “I’m Antoine Crowley.” 

Now came the recognition. The aggression in his stance dropped slightly. “Ah. Apologies, monsieur.” 

And he was gone again.

 _Surrounded_. Likely, then, none of these women were leaving here with their precious wares. They’d all be jailed for the heinous crime of being too poor for another form of income; jailed for turning to ill-understood arts for profit. 

Then, from a different direction, another shape hurtled out of the mist and careened into him. He was knocked backwards, his legs giving out before he could catch himself, and in the next moment he’d landed hard on the splintering dock - and a woman had fallen on top of him, and was now scrambling away with a terrified look.

“What -” Crowley shook himself and sat up. The woman had no supplies in her hands, nothing but a jagged piece of wood that might have been a makeshift knife. She tried to scramble to her feet, but her ankle had twisted - he could see it swelling and darkening - and she quailed as he moved toward her on instinct.

“One more move and I’ll kill you,” she threatened, holding out the piece of wood, but there was no force behind the words.

And then came the voice. From what felt like high above, a voice in this chaos that was quiet and strangely proper-sounding. “Oh, dear - what’s happened here?”

Crowley looked up, and his eyes locked on the face of another policeman.

His stomach had plummeted before he even knew why. The man’s face was round, his eyes crinkled slightly with age - around Crowley’s age, he guessed - and a striking shade of blue. His hair was a mess of white fluffy curls that stuck out beneath his uniform hat. His hands were clasped in front of him, not holding his baton, not resting on his sword.

And Crowley knew him. Crowley had seen that face before, looming high above him, over his impeccably pressed uniform; when he’d been hauling ropes and lifting wood with a chain around his ankle, a faded cap over his sunburnt face, years ago. That face had looked on in a smart formation as Crowley and his fellow convicts were herded in and out of their quarters, had helped to manage head counts, had checked Crowley’s old name off lists for food rations and meager yearly earnings. Those eyes had watched the irons clamp around Crowley’s wrists every night before his restless sleep. 

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. Inspector Aziraphale, who’d overseen the chain gang for nineteen years, was standing over him again. 

The woman dropped her knife. Her hands lifted, shaking and suppliant. “Please, monsieur, you can’t arrest me! I have a son, he’s dangerously ill - he needs the money I make here, he’ll die if I can’t send it -”

“Slow down.” Aziraphale dropped to one knee, placing a steadying hand on her arm. “A son?”

It was seeing his hand on her arm that made Crowley realize, with a wrench in his gut, how thin she was. Her skin clung to her bones in a hungry, sickly way, and - now that he could see it he wondered how he’d missed it - her cheeks were frighteningly hollow, her eyes sunken despite their defiance. 

“Yes,” she gasped. “My son, my only son, I have to pay for his medicine!” 

And Crowley found his voice as he rose to his feet. Angrier than he’d meant it to come out. “Dozens of them are in her situation, Inspector.”

Aziraphale blinked and looked up at him. Now that he was kneeling, Crowley stood above him. “And - and you are?”

The inspector didn’t know him. Of course, Crowley had merely been one of the gang, one of a hundred interchangeable laborers Aziraphale probably saw every day. One of those society had cast out as less than human. Why should his face have left an impression? Anyway, his appearance had changed since those days. 

“Antoine Crowley,” he said. 

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. He made to stand. “Monsieur mayor! I didn’t realize -”

“You don’t need to salute me.” He didn’t think he could stand that. He turned to the woman instead. “What’s happened to you? Are you sick, too?” 

Her gaze didn’t lift to his when she spoke. “Not sick, Monsieur Crowley. I’m only starving. I haven’t been able to work since your foreman fired me.”

His mouth opened in shock. “My foreman - what?”

“He found out I had a child and no husband.” 

Crowley shut his eyes. Oh, damn this town to hell, of course she’d been fired for that. And just how many children had this foreman probably sired out of wedlock? Who would ever even think to hold _him_ accountable for those misdeeds? 

The woman had started coughing. Her lips, he saw now, were nearly blue with cold. 

“These are the people you’re arresting,” Crowley shot at Aziraphale. “Desperate people. The poor and the vulnerable. Whose idea was it, anyway, to bring a police force to break up a harmless witching den on the docks?”

Aziraphale’s lips drew together. “It does seem harsh.” 

Crowley blinked. He’d been expecting a shot-back reply. Anger was still thundering in his blood, anger at the woman’s revelation and a farther-back, deeper kind of anger as well, and he’d been expecting an argument - as though that would help, as though his anger had the power to change anything. But Aziraphale wasn’t even looking at him anymore. He was helping the woman, slowly, carefully to her feet, allowing her to lean on him so as not to put pressure on her ankle.

This mist was causing him to see things so slowly. It was only now, when his mind had begun to process the sudden presence of this face from his past, that he realized Aziraphale wasn’t wearing his police uniform coat. 

“What happened to your uniform?” he asked, as the woman collected herself, wrapping a frayed shawl tighter around her shoulders. 

Aziraphale shook his head. “It’s not important.” 

But he must be cold without it, Crowley thought, in nothing but a thin shirt; the woman was nearly freezing, bunching her blue-white fingers in the fabric of her dress. “What did you do, lose it?”

“Will you take her?” 

Crowley frowned. Aziraphale motioned with his head toward the woman, who was still leaning against him, still unable to stand on her own. His hands were around her shoulders. His eyes, though, were on Crowley’s, showing a mixture of fear and hesitation and a certain kind of shame.

And he didn’t think, didn’t consider the implications of his actions. He stretched out his arms and let her lean on him. 

“I gave it away,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley’s mouth went dry. “You - you what?”

“To another witch.” He looked away and stepped backward. “She had nowhere to hide her supplies.” 

This was Inspector Aziraphale. One of the soldiers who’d marched on high while the convicts were thrown down to hell below them. Who’d kept his distance while they were worked to near-death in the blazing heat and the bitter cold. When Crowley had squinted through the sun and glared up at their faces, he’d seen this man and hated him just as much as he’d hated all the others - hated him with all the built-up sediment of pain and resentment in his heart. 

But now here he stood before Crowley, shamefacedly admitting to helping a witch escape the authorities, to _giving her his uniform_ , something so obvious it would take a miracle if he wasn’t caught, and handing another one off to him.

“If she leaves with you,” said Aziraphale, eyes still on the ground, “she likely won’t be questioned.” 

Crowley looked back to the woman. “What’s your name?”

“Harriet,” she said. She glanced back and forth between them, as if still struggling to understand what was going on. “You’re - are you really going to help me?” 

“I’ll do my best.” He met her eyes. “And if you tell me which foreman it was that fired you, I can make sure he never works again.” 

She shook her head. “Forget that. You need to help my son. He needs money for the medicine.” Her fingers tightened now against his shirt. “I don’t care what happens to me, but he _needs_ that medicine, do you understand?”

“I’ll take care of it. I’ll find him.”

“Promise me.” Her eyes blazed. “Promise.”

He didn’t think. He never, ever thought. “I promise.”

And then she started coughing again. And Aziraphale, without a second of hesitation, came forward; he pulled off his pair of thick gloves and pressed them into her hands. 

Their eyes met once again, as Crowley prepared to support Harriet away. This time Aziraphale’s expression was harder to parse. It was a quiet look, one of thanks, maybe, or of acknowledgement. Those blue eyes were as bright as the sky, but there was something of distance in them too - something to suggest an ocean brimming beneath.

And then there was a spark of something else in those eyes, a quick furrow of Aziraphale’s brows. A second of confusion. And Crowley’s heart resumed its terrified beat. 

_He knows me, he knows me, he knows!_

Crowley tore his eyes away and nearly let go of Harriet as he retreated. “Ah - thanks, Inspector. I’ll be going.”

Aziraphale lifted a pale, ungloved hand in an awkward farewell. “Monsieur mayor.” 

_He’s going to be cold now_ , Crowley thought, and then forced all other thoughts from his mind. He had to get out of here right now. Get Harriet somewhere safe - the hospital, yes, and pay for a bed and for food and figure out where her son was. And then he needed to get somewhere private. He needed to calm the new riot in his mind. He needed to make plans, because if Aziraphale had just recognized him, if Aziraphale even _suspected_ him -

He saw the swords, again, saw the rifles. He saw the chains and the trial and the weight of the word _convict_ hung around his neck again, the punishment for breaking parole, the sentence of hard labor for life. Hell for eternity.

He didn’t speak to Harriet. She was too weak, at this point, for prolonged conversation anyway. Coughing and shivering, face buried in the gloves Aziraphale had given her in a futile attempt to warm herself. Eventually walking was too slow and he carried her instead. Though she’d denied it, it was increasingly clear she _was_ sick - with what, he couldn’t begin to know, but sweat stood out on her forehead despite how cold she was. By the time they’d reached the hospital her breaths were alarmingly shallow.

The nurses didn’t question Crowley when he appeared with Harriet; they helped her to a bed and wrapped her ankle, gave her blankets and pillows and hot broth. Even then she wouldn’t stop shivering.

“I have to go now,” Crowley said. “Try to get some rest, Harriet.” 

She gripped his shirt again. “I can’t rest until I know my son is safe.” 

He put a hand over hers. “The minute I get to my office, I’ll mail a letter sending for him. I’ll include as much money as he needs. What’s his name?”

Harriet’s fingers released him, and she held them up, splayed out, examining them. Her eyes gained a dreamy look for a moment.

“Warlock,” she said. “Warlock is his name. My boy.” 

And for the first time since the police whistle had sounded, Crowley found a smile warming his face, loosening it slightly. “Warlock?”

Harriet nodded. 

“A little on the nose, isn’t it?” 

She released a quiet laugh. “His father abandoned us before he was born, and Thaddeus never approved of my craft. I gave Warlock the name to spite him.” 

Crowley grinned. “Good for you.” 

When he was back in his office, it was full dark outside, and the mist had cleared. When he sat at his desk and lit his candles - nestled inside a pair of gleaming silver candlesticks, which he stroked a thumb over gently, losing himself in memory for a moment - he glimpsed a scattering of stars out the window. He stared out at them as he collected himself. They turned the black behind them purer, he thought; they washed the tiny, filthy town of Montreuil-sur-mer below them with liquid white. Crowley had always thought the stars were beautiful. 

Then he thought of Aziraphale’s eyes. Of the expression they’d held as he’d given Harriet to Crowley to help away. Of that strange, wavering something that had passed between them, just for a moment, as Crowley had noticed for the first time that those eyes were beautiful too. 

And then - had there been a realization, a moment later? 

Crowley put his face in his hands. You were never free once you’d landed on the chain gang once. That was something he ought to have learned by now. What was he doing, anyway, thinking about an officer of the law like that? Whether Aziraphale knew it or not, whether he ever realized it or not, he and Crowley were on opposite sides. 

And yet those eyes wouldn’t leave his thoughts all night. 

_____

It started on that day. 

Years later, in an old, blanket-strewn rocking chair, when he was telling the story in a slow, wilting voice, one eye already on a horizon the living couldn’t quite see, that was what Crowley would say. He could have said it started with the apple he’d stolen for his sister’s child, or the day he’d stood before the court and been condemned, or the nineteen years of misery that had twisted his heart to hatred. He could have said it started with the bishop and the candlesticks, the night that had ignited in him a tiny spark of hope, the decision he’d made, after that act of compassion, to tear his yellow paper and begin a new life. But that wasn’t really where the story started. At least, not the story Crowley wanted to tell. 

No, the story he wanted to tell started, as it would end, with the outcasts. The witches, the godless and the lawless, and the tiny, unlikely connection forged in an attempt to save a single one. That was the seed that would flower into the whole impossible affair. 

The story, after all, was a love story.


	2. False Report

That weekend was the longest of his life. He spent more time in the hospital than out of it, and half the time out of it he was on his way back. Harriet got better, then worse, then better, then worse again. She didn’t seem remotely interested in resting; she was awake, fighting to move, fighting to speak, every second Crowley was with her. 

“What’s the news of Warlock?” was her constant refrain. “Is he coming? Will I see him before…”

Crowley didn’t let her finish that thought. 

“I found the innkeeper who’s taking care of him,” he said. “I’ve sent over the ten francs they were demanding. Their response should be coming soon.”

And the next time she asked, “I sent them another letter telling them it’s urgent. I told them I’d give them fifty more francs if they brought Warlock as soon as possible.”

And the third time, “You need to eat.” 

She ate only sparingly. She’d opted to battle through her sickness rather than trying to wait it out, though Crowley doubted she considered highly her odds of survival. Every time her condition worsened, more weight seemed to drop off her. Her cheeks grew hollower. There wasn’t much fight in her left. 

Late on Saturday night - or it might have been early Sunday morning - there was a quiet knock on the door of the hospital room. Crowley was alone with her, the nurses having gone to bed, and he figured one of them must have come to check on her. He called for the knocker to come in without a second thought. 

“Ah - monsieur.” 

Crowley froze. It was Aziraphale in the doorway; shadowy in the dimness of the hall, but still visible, his uniform restored and whole. He looked just as surprised to see Crowley as Crowley was to see him.

“Inspector,” he said haltingly. “Come in. What’s - are you -”

“I realize we haven’t been formally introduced.” He was fidgeting; he kept twisting his fingers together over his stomach as though struggling to digest something. “When we. Ah. When we met before.” 

Crowley swallowed. He hadn’t spoken Aziraphale’s name by accident, had he? “Right.”

“My name is Aziraphale.” He crossed the room in small steps as though embarrassed and put out his hand. “I’ve recently come from - I mean -” His face went pink. “Never mind. I’ve recently come to Montreuil-sur-mer to join your police force here.”

He didn’t want to mention he’d been overseeing the chain gang. Why not? Did he think Crowley would flee? Did Aziraphale recognize him after all, but want to hide it until he had proof? Was he here to arrest him now and this conversation was only a pretense? Crowley tried to keep his hands from trembling, tried to school his features into casualness. Antoine Crowley had never met this man before. “And what’s your first name?”

Aziraphale went redder. He shifted from foot to foot, fidgeting more intensely than before. “I - I don’t have one, monsieur. Or rather I don’t have a surname.” 

Crowley blinked. This was new information. “You don’t?”

“No, monsieur.” He adjusted his coat. “I wasn’t born respectably. I was…” He shook his head. “The truth is, I was -”

“Never mind,” said Crowley quickly. He thought Aziraphale was going to burst soon with nervousness. “It doesn’t matter.”

Aziraphale’s hands stilled for a moment; his eyes met Crowley’s in surprise. “Oh. I… thank you.” 

Silence seeped through the room. Neither of them moved; with Harriet temporarily asleep, the only thing in motion in the room was the flickering light of the candles. They didn’t illuminate Aziraphale’s face well. He still looked half-in and half-out of shadow. Yet they danced bright enough in his eyes. Enough for Crowley to see their exact shade of ocean-blue again, and again to wonder how it was that two such tiny things could evoke something so enormous. 

Perhaps because of all he managed to communicate without words. The weight behind the _thank you_ was as tangible to Crowley as if he felt it himself. The expression in his eyes made the words echo in a way they couldn’t have if they’d been shouted. 

_You don’t need to tell me your name_ , a bishop had said to Crowley once, a bishop who had acted unlike every supposed man of God Crowley had ever known, and Crowley had felt a kind of relief he couldn’t possibly describe. Back then he might as well not have had a name; the one he carried damned him. 

“I’ll just call you Aziraphale,” said Crowley. “Is that all right?”

He cursed inwardly. Why did his voice sound like that? Why was there something approaching softness in it? He was addressing an enemy. An _enemy_. He couldn’t afford to forget it. 

And yet with nothing but a shift in that ocean, and the tiniest upturned corners of his lips, Aziraphale conveyed the same softness in his response. “I would be grateful.” 

He couldn’t know who Crowley was. He wouldn’t smile at a convict, wouldn’t dream to. It must be nothing but paranoia that made Crowley afraid. That look of confusion could have meant anything - or Crowley could have imagined it entirely. It had only been a split second, after all. And Crowley had been surprised, and the police had been shouting all around them, and it was natural he would panic at the sight of someone from his past, but that was all so _long_ ago now, it didn’t matter. It couldn’t. 

Crowley took a breath and turned abruptly back to Harriet. “You’ve come to see how she’s doing?” 

“Yes - ah - of course.” The fidgeting started up again, and the momentary trance was broken. “I haven’t had the chance to get away from my duties. How is she?” 

“It depends on when you ask.”

Harriet stirred as though roused by their talking about her. “Crowley?”

“I’m here.” He knelt by her head. “Do you need anything?” 

“Water,” she whispered, then cleared her throat as if refusing to be confined to whispering. “Just some water.”

Aziraphale moved before Crowley could. He had a glass and a pitcher in his hands so quickly it looked like a miracle. He put an arm around her and supported her upright so she could drink, and she managed to get most of it down before her coughing started again. 

“You,” she said to Aziraphale. “You didn’t tell anyone about me, did you?”

Aziraphale bit his lip. “I… I don’t see why the police need to know about every witch in the town. That isn’t what the law is for, is it?”

Harriet exhaled. “Thank God.” 

“I wasn’t _commanded_ to report on all the witches I saw.” He set down the pitcher and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I mean, no one asked me to make a list. I was only there to help - to keep the peace, that’s what Gabriel told me. So there was no reason for me to -”

“It’s all right,” said Crowley, almost against his will. He’d sensed Aziraphale’s rising nerves again. “You did the right thing.”

This time the smile Aziraphale gave him was a little wider. “Oh, I’m glad you think so.”

Crowley hardly knew what he would have done, how he would have responded to those bright blue eyes directing warmth at him, if Harriet hadn’t interrupted them again. “Can I have more water?” 

They stayed with her for almost another hour before she dropped into a fitful sleep again. They didn’t talk much; Harriet directed her questions about Warlock to Crowley, and Crowley answered them as best he could. Most of them by now he couldn’t answer. No, he didn’t know how soon Warlock would arrive. No, he didn’t know if he’d recovered from his sickness, if the innkeeper had had time to buy his medicine. No, he didn’t know how soon she could see him. No, he didn’t know if she was getting better. 

Aziraphale supported her when she needed to move. His gestures were ever-gentle, his voice quiet. When the candlelight lit him from the back, it caught in his cloud-white curls; he could almost have been some artist’s imagining of an angel.

_Enemy_ , he reminded himself vehemently. What in the world had gotten into him? 

But Aziraphale hadn’t turned Harriet in for witchcraft. He’d helped her, along with Crowley - he’d given her his gloves. He’d given another witch his uniform. What if he did recognize Crowley and didn’t care? What if he wasn’t going to turn him in regardless? Was it possible - _wasn’t it?_ \- that there was still a point of kindness in the vast empire of France’s law? 

But. Aziraphale had a history that went past yesterday. He hadn’t ever offered his coat to a convict, had he, when they’d been shivering through January nights without sheets? He hadn’t ever offered Crowley gloves when sunburn peeled the skin off the backs of his hands. The world saw convicts as less than human beings - why should Aziraphale be any different? 

When she was asleep they rose to go in unison. Aziraphale stepped aside to let Crowley go first. It was a respectful gesture, but Crowley felt the back of his neck prickle when he put the inspector behind him. 

“Good night, monsieur,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley didn’t look back. He forced his words to be as brusque as possible. “Good night.” 

_____

The sun was setting on Sunday when Crowley came to see Harriet for the last time. The nurses were around her, and her eyes were half-open, and he knew from the moment he entered the room what kind of meeting this would be.

“Harriet,” he said as he approached the bed. “Can you hear me?”

She didn’t look at him. Her gaze was fixed somewhere over his shoulder, on something he couldn’t see. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Crowley.” His gut twisted. “I… I came to tell you there’s still been no word about Warlock. I’m going to send something else, I’ll send more money if I need to, but they’re just not responding - they won’t -”

Only one word appeared to have gotten through to her. She blinked. “Warlock?”

“Yes, Warlock, I’m so sorry I can’t -”

“He’s here.” A serene smile crossed her face. “I knew it. I _knew_ he was on his way.” 

Crowley opened his mouth but couldn’t make a noise. He looked to the nurses, but they weren’t looking at him. They only tolerated his presence here anyway. Harriet was staring straight at him now. But her smile was meant to greet someone else.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she murmured. “Give me a few minutes to rest, all right? Then I’ll take you somewhere private and show you all the spells I’ve been working on. I’ll make some explosions for you. You like the explosions, don’t you?”

Crowley exhaled and took another step toward her. “I’m sure he’d like that.”

Harriet nodded. “And - and I’ll get you a lizard as a pet. A familiar, if you like, if you want to carry on the family business.” 

He took her hand. It was clammy. “Harriet…”

“I’ll protect you from the police,” she said, sounding slightly frantic now. “I’ll keep you away from their rifles. They’ll never take you to jail, not as long as I’m living.” 

Crowley’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment. “Harriet.”

Her hand clamped over his, forcing his eyes open. Suddenly she was alert, aware. “Where is he now?”

“He - Warlock?”

“Yes, yes, haven’t you been listening?” Her grip was almost painful. “Where is he? Is he safe?”

“He will be.” Crowley squeezed her fingers. “He’ll - I’ll take care of him when you’re gone. I’ll take him in. There won’t be any need to send money anymore, all right? And he’ll be under my protection.”

The relief that swept over her was like some fairy-tale transformation. It melted every last atom of tension from her body. “Yes. Yes, I knew it.” 

“Everything’s going to be all right.”

And as if those were the magic words, she sagged back against her pillows, and her gaze turned utterly serene again. 

The nurses didn’t look at him. Or maybe he didn’t look at them. His eyes were on the slow, gradual rising and falling of her chest. He wasn’t any stranger to death - his sister had gone much the same way Harriet had, desperate to provide for her son, leaving that responsibility to Crowley after she died - but he couldn’t look away from it even still. He’d never gained the knack, even on the chain gang, for treating death like something casual. When she stopped breathing he bowed his head and had to fight back his tears.

_These are the people you’re arresting_. These were the souls that were being lost, for nothing but lack of compassion. 

He’d send another letter. If they didn’t answer this one, he’d go to find Warlock himself. He’d have to be the one to break the news to him about his mother. He’d have to acknowledge that Harriet had died under his watch, had starved in his town after his foreman had fired her. He’d have to take the responsibility for that on his shoulders.

Well. At least this time he wouldn’t have to steal to feed his charge; money did open a few doors even for convicts.

Crowley rose to his feet. He had work to do.

_____

At dawn on Monday morning he was at his desk. He hadn’t been in bed all night; he’d been waiting for a letter, he’d been composing his condolences, he’d been fuming about unfairness. Exhaustion had caught up to him only in the past half an hour. He was practically falling asleep when the soft knock came; he was almost sure he’d imagined it.

“Come in,” he said, working to keep his eyes open. 

Aziraphale again. Even the mixed twinge of emotions at his appearance couldn’t do much to rouse him; his mind was still full of Harriet’s stilling breath and Warlock’s absence and the fact that she’d never had the chance to tell him goodbye. He gestured for Aziraphale to approach.

“Monsieur,” said Aziraphale, and - was it only Crowley’s groggy state that made it seem Aziraphale was mumbling? “Monsieur, I have… I have bad news.”

Crowley rubbed his eyes hard and managed to look up steadily. “If it’s about Harriet, I already know.”

“Harriet?” Aziraphale blinked. “I - no, I don’t - what’s the news about her?”

He lowered his head again. He wanted to cover it with his hands and block out the world completely. “She’s gone.” 

There was a long pause. Then: “Ah.”

They couldn’t go down this route; Crowley had spent all night grieving, bouncing between anger and sadness and despair and disgust and back to anger, and he didn’t want to rehash it now with anyone. “Is this bad news important?”

“I’m afraid it is.” 

“Out with it, then.” And then he had to mail his new letter, and then maybe he’d get some sleep. 

“The thing is - ah - hm. Well. If you…” 

Crowley glanced up. He realized, for the first time, that anxiety was coming off Aziraphale in waves. He wasn’t merely fidgeting; he couldn’t meet Crowley’s eyes, he couldn’t seem to look at anything for longer than a moment, he was bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. He looked a hair’s breadth from bolting out the door. 

Sharper fear pricked Crowley farther awake. “What is it?”

“I did something…” Aziraphale swallowed hard. “I did something I didn’t intend to. I swear, I had no intention of - I would never - I mean, I was only trying - I wasn’t trying -”

“Talk slower.” Crowley sat up straighter in his chair. His heart was beginning to pound. “What did you do?”

Aziraphale’s eyes settled for the time being on the floor at his feet. His voice was so low it was barely audible even in the cramped office. “Your - your name, monsieur. It’s very similar to the name of an escaped convict.” 

Something inside him was falling. Tumbling like a tube down a flight of stairs, striking and bruising and bouncing off every one. No. It couldn’t be, not after all this time, not _really_ -

“A man named Jean Crawley,” said Aziraphale. “I happened to have seen him several times, before he was released on parole. I thought you looked a little like him the first day we met. And so…”

It hadn’t been his imagination. Crowley’s palms were sweating now, his heart throwing itself upward into his throat. What would happen if he ran from the room right now? Would Aziraphale be able to stop him? Were police waiting outside the building? Could he fight them, if it came to that? He wasn’t a young man anymore, but he still had some strength, he hadn’t worked that chain gang for nothing.

“It happened…” Aziraphale was still wringing his hands; his gaze had turned up to the ceiling now. “It happened that a report was sent from here. From - from me. Saying that you were the convict, Crawley, and - and that you should be arrested.” 

Crowley’s eyes darted to the door. No one there at the moment. He licked his lips. He had only one shot at escape, if he had any now - but he had to seize it fast. He rose from his desk fast enough that his chair toppled over behind him.

“But they had only recently caught the real Crawley, and so they - wait - monsieur, wait, please!” 

Crowley froze. Aziraphale had taken several steps backward, apparently on instinct, as his voice had shot up from nervousness to terror. He was cowering now as though he expected Crowley to hit him. 

“Wait.” Crowley shook his head. “You - you caught the real Crawley?”

“It was incredibly fortunate,” Aziraphale said. He was trembling badly. “They found him committing another robbery. And a couple of men who had been on the chain gang with him were there to confirm his identity. So… it was clear right away I’d made a mistake.”

The shift in the course of Crowley’s thoughts was taking longer than it should. He was still gaping at Aziraphale, still standing up as though about to run with shock written plainly across his face. He forced his mouth closed and attempted to finish processing.

_The real Crawley_. They’d found someone else. They’d caught a man they thought was him, and so the case of the missing Jean Crawley was closed, and so all Aziraphale’s suspicion didn’t amount to anything. 

They were sending someone else to the chain gang. 

Crowley couldn’t get a handle on the new emotions swirling through his mind. He shook his head, attempting to dislodge them for the moment, and stepped around his desk more slowly. “Well, then -”

Aziraphale flinched. Apparently involuntarily, he took another tiny step backward. Crowley stilled again; Aziraphale was making no moves to run, he was still facing fully toward Crowley, but he seemed convinced something terrible was about to happen to him.

Maybe it was the relief, bubbling up from within despite his attempts to quash it. Or maybe it was that he could remember how Aziraphale had looked on Saturday night, how _kind_ he’d appeared for a moment, like a man who’d never seen a row of laboring convicts and who still believed in a higher meaning of the law. Or maybe it was just his own lack of sense, and the sight of someone terrified in front of him. But he didn’t think about the fact that Aziraphale had turned him over to the police. He spread his arms in a non-threatening gesture and didn’t take another step forward.

“Well, then,” he repeated, “there’s no harm done. Thanks for telling me.”

Aziraphale’s mouth hung open as he stared. 

“You can go back to your post,” he said. “I’m not angry.”

“But…” Aziraphale straightened, as if suddenly anxious to appear brave. “But I disrespected you. And I made a mistake that almost cost you terribly. You’re completely within your rights to - whatever you have to do. I know my place.”

“I don’t have to do anything.” He lowered his hands to his desk. “And you don’t, either, come to that. But if you still want your position in the police force, it’s yours.” 

Aziraphale was poised as if expecting some sort of punch line. “I mistook you for a convict, monsieur mayor.”

“Well.” He tried a small smile. “We do have similar names.” 

For a moment, a long, fraying, hanging moment, Crowley thought he saw tears welling in Aziraphale’s eyes. The ocean behind them swung dangerously close to becoming literal. What had Aziraphale been expecting Crowley to do? What - an unpleasant thought crossed his mind - what was the usual punishment for a misdeed like this, that Aziraphale was so afraid of it? The question almost managed to derail Crowley’s spiraling inner turmoil. 

But then Aziraphale blinked, and stood at attention again, and his voice was ordinary when he spoke. “Thank you, monsieur. I really didn’t - I mean -” he exhaled. “Thank you.”

And he walked out into the hall, leaving Crowley still standing, his chair toppled sideways behind him. 

_They caught the real Crawley._

Slowly he righted his chair and sank into it. He put his face in his hands again, leaning over his desk, re-assuming the position he’d held before Aziraphale had entered. But there was no chance of getting back to sleep now. No chance of a quiet day while he waited for a response from the innkeeper. No chance of receiving Warlock.

He peeked through his fingers at the letter he’d just finished composing. Condolences for Harriet’s death. A promise to take Warlock in. An assurance that he had all the means, all the space to accommodate the boy.

“Idiot,” Crowley muttered to himself. _“Idiot.”_

There was no escaping the chain gang. If you were on it for a day, you were on it for six thousand years. If you didn’t go back yourself they found a lookalike to drag back in your place. If you wanted to be safe from them forever, you had to be willing to sell your soul. 

This was what came of getting chummy with an officer of the law. He’d known it was stupid. He’d been doomed the second his eyes had met Aziraphale’s in that witching den.

And he could have thought it all through now, maybe - but he wasn’t any good at thinking, was he? He’d already made up his mind what to do. There was only one thing to do, the only choice he’d ever been given since his first arrest. Fall again. 

He clutched one of his silver candlesticks as if for balance.

_Fall._


	3. The Confrontation

Had he known? 

It was difficult for Aziraphale to remember the whole thing clearly. The whole ordeal, from the moment he met Crowley’s eyes - _Crawley’s_ eyes - in the witching den and recognized him, to the moment Crowley - _Crawley_ \- burst into the courtroom to stop the wrong Crawley’s trial, seemed like a blur. Had he really known, right from the beginning? He couldn’t have, he thought. And yet…

 _You did the right thing_ , he’d told Aziraphale, when they’d been together in the hospital, and Aziraphale had felt a strange, shining kind of warmth in his chest. Nothing like the sick doubt he’d felt when Gabriel had clapped him on the shoulder and said the same thing. But if Aziraphale had known all along that Crowley was Crawley, he wouldn’t have felt warm at being praised by him, would he?

That was ridiculous. So, he hadn’t known. It had really been just a passing moment, an idle thought, that the mayor looked a tiny bit like that old convict - nothing should ever have come of it. Nothing _would_ have come of it, if Gabriel hadn’t forced the idea out of him when he arrived back at the police station, if he hadn’t kept firing question after question at him, twisting his words until Aziraphale was dropping incredible accusations against a man he’d hardly met. Aziraphale hadn’t meant any of that to happen. 

When you were talking to Gabriel, the conversation always turned out the way he wanted it to. If Gabriel was high off the arrest of a dozen witches and wanted another criminal to accuse, he would find one, even on the basis of his lowliest officer’s speculation. That was something Aziraphale had learned very early on.

Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut. He was standing outside the door of the hospital. He’d been sent to collect Crowley - _Crawley_ , damn it, why couldn’t he remember? - after he’d left the courtroom and the trial had been dismissed. Someone on the street had directed him to the hospital when he’d asked which way the mayor had gone. He knew he ought to hurry, but his feet felt weighed down with lead. 

Jean Crawley, the convict, had smiled at him only this morning. The image still gleamed a little in his memory. Jean Crawley had told him he didn’t need to explain his shameful birth, his lack of a real name. Of course none of that should make him happy - was he really so desperate for affirmation he’d take it from a criminal? - and yet, and yet, and yet. 

It didn’t matter. He and Crawley were on opposite sides. Aziraphale squared his shoulders and opened the door, directing his feet toward Harriet’s room. 

The door was ajar. Aziraphale could just see Crawley inside, talking to one of the nurses; the bed where Harriet had been was already empty. 

“She still had this locket on,” the nurse was saying softly. “She told us it was her last possession. If you show it to the innkeeper, they’ll know she sent you.”

“Thank you.” Crawley’s voice was a little hoarse; he’d been shouting in the courtroom. Aziraphale could hardly remember what he’d said, only that he’d been in a frenzy of anger mixed with fear, and that he’d left everyone there so stunned it had taken them several minutes for them to collect themselves. 

“You don’t have to pay now, if you don’t have the money on you,” said the nurse.

“I have all my money on me. What do you need?”

The nurse seemed a little taken aback when she responded. Did she know? She couldn’t, not unless Crawley had confessed to her before coming to the trial. She thought he was still the mayor and had no inkling he was now on the run. 

“I’m going away tonight,” Crawley said. “Now, actually. This locket was the last thing I needed.”

“Safe journey to you.” The nurse nodded and turned toward the door. When she went out, she saw Aziraphale standing there, but she paid him little mind. The nurses had already seen him come in here before to speak with the mayor.

Crawley still stood, facing away from Aziraphale, staring out the window onto the water. Aziraphale stepped softly into the room and Crawley didn’t turn around.

He cleared his throat. “Jean Crawley.” 

When Crawley started and swung around, Aziraphale had to force himself to meet his gaze. He shouldn’t feel ashamed, this was a criminal, he knew that, and yet. He saw the dark circles drawn under Crawley’s eyes, the way the hand he had clenched around Harriet’s locket trembled slightly, and he couldn’t move for a moment. 

“Jean Crawley,” he said again, pushing the words through his dry throat. “You’re under arrest.”

Crawley’s lips twisted. There was a complicated expression on his face; he seemed to be weighing his situation carefully. When he spoke again, it was with the same calm he’d used earlier, as though he was still a mayor. “Call me Crowley.”

“That’s…” Aziraphale licked his lips nervously. “That’s not your name.” 

“Oh, play along with me, won’t you?” The words almost had a note of teasing in them.

He shouldn’t be swayed by a convict’s words. This man had done nothing but lie to him since they’d met, and he’d been a thief last time he was free. Once a thief, forever a thief - that was what Gabriel had always taught him. The name _Crowley_ was only the latest thing the thief had taken. So he should stick to the facts, stick to his principles, call him by the name printed on the yellow paper he’d destroyed. 

And yet. Aziraphale found he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t look directly at Crowley and not call him that. The name somehow seemed to suit him infinitely better.

“Antoine Crowley, then,” he said, struggling to keep his voice clipped and expressionless. “It doesn’t matter what I call you.”

“It matters to me.” 

Aziraphale felt his cheeks warming stupidly. Clenching his teeth, he made to draw his sword. But Crowley didn’t move; the look on his face, half a grin and half a grimace, hadn’t faded. It felt strangely difficult for Aziraphale to move his feet.

Had he known? When he looked into Crowley’s eyes, thanked him for that tiny shared act of defiance in the witching den - though it wasn’t _really_ defiance, though it wasn’t _really_ against the law to do what he’d done, though he hadn’t _really_ disobeyed any orders and he’d only been worried about a misunderstanding - right at that moment, had he seen the same twin flames that had once glared up at him from a row of convicts? Softer, like candlelight instead of the inferno they’d been before, but hadn’t he seen them?

“What are you waiting for?” Crowley asked, his voice quiet. “There’s no mistake. I’m the convict, I’ve confessed it in front of a whole room of judges. And I’m defenseless here, and you’re armed. Come and take me.” 

What had made Aziraphale want to conceal it then? What had made him lose his appetite all Saturday and Sunday after he’d let the whole thing slip to Gabriel? That was the same force that held him back now. 

“I…” Aziraphale whispered.

“What is it, Inspector?”

Aziraphale took a tentative step forward. He searched Crowley’s face; that fire was certainly alive in it now. But Aziraphale still couldn’t quite read what the expression was. Something akin to a challenge, or even - in the way Crowley’s eyes glinted like snake eyes - to a temptation. 

“Do you hate me?” Aziraphale said.

Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Hate you?”

“You -” He swallowed. It shouldn’t mean anything, Crowley was a criminal, this was all nonsense. He ought to show more emotional composure. But he plowed on anyway. “You must hate me. You saw me on the chain gang while they were working you and starving you and -” he cut himself off, reddening further. “I mean, it’s _just_ , of course, only a punishment for the crimes of - I only meant…”

“My crimes?” Crowley let out a short, bitter laugh. “I stole an apple to save a child. I’m hardly a murderer.”

Aziraphale couldn’t think of an answer to that. He still had his hand on his sword, but he’d only taken one step forward, and Crowley was still far out of his reach.

Crowley leaned forward slightly, and the glint in his eyes grew more pronounced. “I can’t see what’s so bad about what I did, anyway. I’m not so sure it should even be called a crime. I only did it so my nephew could eat. And where does society get off, letting a little boy like that go hungry in the first place? Why not make it so the poor don’t have to steal?”

“That’s not - that’s out of our hands,” said Aziraphale. “It’s the way of the world. And it’s best not to question the law like that.”

“But wasn’t nineteen years, and then a life of parole, a little harsh? First offense and everything?” The challenge in Crowley’s eyes seemed to have worked itself up to full strength. It wasn’t hatred, but something else, something unspoken but needle-sharp and prodding. “Wasn’t it understandable that I wanted to start a new life? I’ve already served my time. Do you really think it’s necessary, arresting me again just because I tore up a piece of paper?”

What was he talking about? “I didn’t make the law, Crowley. I can’t change it just because there are parts I don’t like.”

“Aha.” The flames in his eyes snapped as though catching a knot in a log. “So you don’t like those parts either.”

Aziraphale shut his eyes tight and curled his fingers hard around the hilt of the sword. This wasn’t supposed to be a conversation. It was supposed to be an arrest. It had already gone on too long. “It’s not for us to like or dislike. It’s for us to obey. You knew it was illegal when you stole the apple - you knew what you were getting yourself into.”

“Not necessarily,” said Crowley, even more quietly than before. 

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes criminals aren’t caught.” 

Aziraphale opened his eyes. Suddenly the aura of challenge, of temptation, resolved itself into clarity. Suddenly he read the unspoken message Crowley was writing on the air.

Ridiculous. Not worth thinking about. It didn’t matter when he’d known, and it didn’t matter how he’d felt, then or now or any time in between. This wasn’t about how he felt. Nothing was ever about how he felt, and hadn’t he learned that by now, hadn’t it been drilled into him enough since his birth in that filthy jail? 

Once a thief, forever a thief. Once you’d scraped the bottom of society there was no rising again. Once you fell over the side of a ship, no one was going to haul you back up. Crowley was a convict and that was all he’d ever be. And Aziraphale would never be anything but what he was. 

He drew his sword at last and took another step forward. This time Crowley did step back, but the challenge didn’t leave his face. He betrayed only a hint of fear when the blade pointed at him.

“How did you even get here?” Aziraphale asked. “You were only released a few years ago. How did you become a mayor in that time?”

Crowley breathed out a tiny laugh. “It’s kind of a blur, to be honest.”

“What did you do?”

“There was this thing with jet beads. I came up with this new way of -” He shook his head. “It’s complicated. And it’s stupid. But everyone was in a clamor to elect me once I’d made a heap of money.” 

Another step, and Crowley stepped back. He was moving toward the back wall, where a single large window looked out onto the water. 

“Of course,” said Crowley, “they’ll be in a hurry to condemn me again, once they know the truth.”

“That you’re a criminal?”

“That I’m a criminal, exactly. They won’t ever hear what I _did_ , just get told what I am. And so everything I’ve tried to do since I came here won’t matter at all.”

Aziraphale pushed away the uncomfortable truth behind his words. “You’re quite the cynic, aren’t you?”

“Cynic?” Crowley’s face changed a little, grew more thoughtful. “I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t say _all_ of them.”

“No?” Aziraphale took another step and Crowley moved at the exact same moment.

“No,” Crowley said lightly. “People who haven’t been trained to set all their store by the law yet, they won’t condemn me.”

“And who is that?” Another step. 

Crowley matched. “Well, kids, for one thing. I’ve always liked kids. They can see these things more clearly.”

They were practically dancing now, and their voices grew more and more nonchalant as they stepped in time to their words. But Aziraphale was still cornering Crowley, still driving him further and further back toward the wall. Any second his back would be pressed to it, and then the conversation would have to end.

Why didn’t Aziraphale just run forward now? Crowley had no chance against him. 

“Other people that society likes to accuse of things,” said Crowley. “Other people on the bottom. They might be willing to stand by me.”

“Other lawbreakers, you mean?”

“Maybe so.” Crowley was only a step away from the wide glass window. “Not all lawbreakers are monsters, you know. I’d prefer Harriet to the foreman who fired her, wouldn’t you?”

Aziraphale thought of Harriet. Her thin face, her feverish cheeks, her iron-solid determination. He thought of the anxious sleep-free days he and Crowley had spent visiting her. She and the other witches on that dock had never done anyone any harm that he’d heard of. He thought of the way she’d insisted, even through the worst of her sickness, that she needed to see her son.

 _Warlock_. Aziraphale’s heart sank. He hadn’t thought of the boy, he realized, since Crowley’s confession. 

Had Crowley still been planning on finding him? If he’d escaped arrest, would he have gone to that innkeeper to take Warlock away? What other reason could he have for coming to get Harriet’s locket, which he still held so tight in his fingers that his hand must be sweating through it? 

And if he didn’t reach the boy, what then? What would become of him? 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Aziraphale, hardly knowing if he was speaking aloud. “It’s - none of that matters.”

“So what does matter?”

“I’m here to arrest you.” He forced his voice to be clear and sharp.

Crowley met his eyes and held him fast. “So why haven’t you?”

Aziraphale’s lips were dry. He had to move. Already this had taken far too long. Already Gabriel would be expecting him back with the convict in tow. What was wrong with him? Why was he so senselessly dragging this out? _Why couldn’t he move?_

_You did the right thing_ , Crowley had said, and he’d felt warm. He’d wanted to hear those words a thousand more times. It was stupid, the stupidest thing he’d ever felt in a lifetime of stupid, stupid feelings, and yet…

“It must be because I’m so _devious_.” Crowley’s whisper practically turned to a hiss at the end of the word. “I got around you. Nothing you could have done.”

Aziraphale tried to swallow, but there was no moisture in his mouth. 

“Such an infamous convict, so clever… there was no chance of catching me alone, was there?” 

“You -” Aziraphale’s voice cracked on the word. 

Still the temptation hung in the air between them. Ripe and low-hanging like the fruit of Eden. Aziraphale couldn’t look anywhere but Crowley’s eyes. His heart was beating harder than it should - it was stupid, it was wrong, it was ridiculous, he wasn’t thinking straight, he couldn’t keep thinking up excuses -

“You,” he tried again, his whisper ten times quieter than Crowley’s. “You’d better not break the window.”

Crowley glanced behind him as though he’d just realized the window was there. He was right next to it, still a step away from the wall, closer to the glass than Aziraphale’s sword was to him. He stared at it, and Aziraphale watched his gaze drift downward to the dark water waiting below. 

And then he looked back up, back into Aziraphale’s eyes, and the tension drained out of his face. A smile - a real, genuine smile, relief mixed with gratitude mixed with something akin to pride - replaced it. 

“You’d better not,” Aziraphale repeated. “I - I mean it. It would be a…” he swallowed. “A devious thing to do.”

Crowley’s fist clenched further over the locket in his hand, preparing to swing. His smile didn’t fade. “It would be despicable.”

But Aziraphale couldn’t say anything in response. His whole body was shivering. It was a wonder he didn’t drop his sword.

For a moment Crowley’s eyes softened. “I don’t, by the way.”

“Wh…” 

“Hate you.” Crowley’s voice was the one he’d used to say _I’ll just call you Aziraphale_. “I did hate you, when I was on the chain gang. But I didn’t really know you then.” 

Aziraphale could do nothing but stare.

“I think,” said Crowley, “you might be a better person than you let yourself believe.”

And then his fist swung, and he put the weight of his body behind it, and the glass shattered - a noise so loud it seemed to rend the very air itself after half an hour of whispered conversation. Aziraphale jumped backward in spite of himself. One moment Crowley was framed by the window and the next he’d vanished - dropped down, taking glass fragments with him. A moment later Aziraphale heard the _crash_ that meant he’d met the water. 

Gone. Aziraphale was alone. 

He stood gaping at the smashed window. He’d told Crowley to break it. Told him to flee. No, that wasn’t right, he hadn’t _told_ him to, but -

But he’d wanted him to. He’d know what he was really saying.

Crowley had said he didn’t hate him. That he knew him, now, in some way he hadn’t before. Light felt like it was bubbling through Aziraphale’s veins. Ridiculous, asinine, absurd, but for a moment staring at that ruined hospital window he felt happier than he could ever remember feeling. Happy enough to sprout wings and crash through the window himself. 

But that was only for a moment. All too soon reality poisoned that imaginary sunshine, and the bubbling, dancing thing in his stomach curdled like days-old milk.

He sheathed his sword and put his face in his hands.

What was he going to tell Gabriel?


	4. The Boy

Crowley wore sunglasses all through his trek to Montfermeil. He snipped his hair short, too, and obscured it under a top hat; the flame-red of it was more recognizable than he liked. He still looked like a gentleman, and he had enough money to pay his way over the land, but he could afford no more eye contact with strangers. That had already cost him enough.

He could hardly believe he’d escaped Montreuil-sur-mer. That Aziraphale had really let him go. The moment he’d pointed out the window he’d seemed like an angel again, for a moment - but in his face also Crowley has seen the same fear of that morning. The terror a dog might show before being hit. And he wondered exactly what kind of sacrifice Aziraphale had made to give him freedom. 

He’d never met an officer like Aziraphale before. If Aziraphale had so much mercy for witches and convicts, what was he doing in the police? What had landed him there, out of his ignoble birth? 

But those questions couldn’t be answered. He had another mission now, and it involved him staying as far from the law as possible. He had to find Warlock. 

It was cold here. The days had been getting colder since his flight - when he’d landed in the dark water, a chill had seeped into him which felt as though it hadn’t altogether vanished. He hoped he wasn’t coming down with anything. He needed his wits about him if he was going to retrieve the boy and get them both somewhere safe. But he shivered as he entered the streets, drawing his cloak tighter around him against the wind.

He’d have to stop someone and ask directions to the Sergeant de Waterloo. Would that be a suspicious action? Was it the kind of inn that gentlemen frequented? Maybe he should obscure his appearance further, maybe…

Hoofbeats against the road.

_Police!_

The panic was just as before, just as it had always been. Crowley ducked off the road and into an alleyway before he’d even registered which way the horses were coming from. He was off, moving as fast and quietly as possible, his heart pounding so hard in his throat it sounded like another pair of hooves right behind him. Pushing his sunglasses further up to obscure his eyes and ramming his hat farther down. 

What if they were looking for him? What if he’d already been seen and the police had been given a tip? What if this whole town was already ready to close in on him? He picked up his pace, turning down another alleyway and another, seeking out darker corners, practically running as the blood roared in his ears. 

He’d never reach Warlock, he was already on his way back to prison, he always had been -

_No_. He forced himself to stop and leaned hard against a rickety wall, putting his face in his hands. He took a deep breath in and held it. That kind of panic wasn’t productive. 

At times like this, when he was left wandering again - like he’d been after being released on parole, like he’d been that desolate day before the bishop had found him - he felt like a boat that had come unmoored. No anchor, no place to land, no rest. He felt he’d been running away and couldn’t stop running, no matter how exhausted he was, no matter how safe the world around him seemed, because there was always someone waiting to catch him. Convicts never had homes they could be safe in. 

But you couldn’t live like that. If he let himself believe the world was nothing but darkness he couldn’t survive. So, there must be things worth living for. There must be people who didn’t hate him. There must be some future, somewhere, where at long last he could stop running. 

Crowley breathed deeply. The police weren’t following him; he couldn’t even hear them anymore. He had to get to the inn.

He was at the outskirts of the town now. Woods sprang up where buildings ended; dark and twisted trees, winter-bare and forbidding. As he squinted through them, another gust of cold wind blasted out from somewhere within, and he nearly staggered backward. Shuddering, he tucked his hands into his armpits and wished fervently his cloak was thicker.

It was getting dark. The longer he dawdled, the deeper the cold would get. Should he go back the way he’d come, or seek out someone around here to ask directions of? The farther away he was from the respectable end of town, the more he stood out, but what had respectable ends of things ever done to prove themselves trustworthy? 

He glanced into the woods again. He was only half-looking when his eye snagged on something.

Far away, almost too far to see in the gathering gloom, a solitary figure was moving slowly through the trees. It was too small to be a man, he thought, though he couldn’t discern its real size - and it wasn’t walking like one either. It was a bulky, lumbering thing, bent over and moving forward in halting jerks.

Goosebumps rose on the back of Crowley’s neck, and this time it wasn’t from the cold. He’d met witches, he’d seen them at their work, he’d saved one from arrest - but that didn’t erase from his mind the stories he’d been told about them as a child. It didn’t erase his mother’s voice, telling him about wood-dwelling hags who snuck into towns by night, casting curses over residents and collecting ingredients for their most secret spells. It didn’t stop him recalling the pictures she’d conjured of old women in tattered rags, surrounded by snakes and black cats and hissing out the incantations for plagues and infant deaths.

But the figure was too small even to be a woman. Crowley took a step forward, still huddled in on himself for warmth. His breath was starting to mist. 

It wasn’t a woman, and it wasn’t a bulky figure either, he realized now. It was a child carrying something.

Crowley moved silently over the ground. Closer up, he could see the child more clearly; a boy in a tattered shirt, long, tangled black hair hanging down to his shoulders. Thin, spindly arms, bared to the wind and pale with chill. And the thing he was carrying was a bucket - a huge, iron bucket filled to the brim with water, which he carried in short bursts over the frozen forest ground. 

He was breathing heavily. His breath was misting too as he moved the bucket a foot forward and then laid it down, panting. He’d wrapped his palms in fabric - scraps of fabric that it looked as though he’d torn from his sleeves - but his fingertips were still frost-blue. His hands trembled badly as they curled around the bucket’s handle to lift it again.

Who was this boy? Crowley’s stomach twisted. What was he doing here, alone in the woods at night, hauling a bucket of water heavier than he was through the trees? What sort of circumstance had led him to that? 

Crowley opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t think what to say. He couldn’t think what to call out to the boy that wouldn’t just terrify him. And yet he couldn’t move, couldn’t retreat back to the town to return to his quest. 

The boy gasped as he managed to drag the bucket another few feet forward, then stopped again. The suddenness of the stop caused some of the water to splash onto the boy’s hands, wetting the fabric he had wrapped around them. He attempted to shake the water off, but the fabric had already absorbed it. 

He bent double again, leaning with his hands on the bucket handle. His shoulders, which had already been trembling with exertion and cold, began to shake harder. For a moment Crowley thought he was coughing.

But no. Crowley’s breath caught. No, that wasn’t coughing. That was the kind of exhausted, worn-lung crying of a convict half a year into his sentence. 

Crowley knew something about weight. He knew it wasn’t just a physical thing - knew it wasn’t just about how heavy something was. Weight was about how far you’d walked that day. It was about how cold you were, how numb the hands you curled again and again around your burden. It was about how little you’d eaten and how little you knew you’d get to eat when you were finished. It was about the worn-through soles of your shoes. It was about despair, as much as anything else - about what it took even to lift your arms and tell yourself to go on. 

That bucket was too heavy for the boy. 

He moved forward without talking. He was beside the boy before the boy even registered his presence, and he’d picked up the bucket, lifted it straight out of his hands, before he could react. 

The boy didn’t move. He didn’t scream or stumble backward, didn’t say a word - he just froze, turning his head up merely to gape at Crowley, eyes huge and bugging from a face so bone-thin it was nearly skeletal. 

“It’s - it’s all right,” said Crowley, working to keep his voice even and soothing. “I won’t hurt you.”

The boy’s mouth worked for a moment, but no sound came out. His hands were still out, fingers curled as though he was still holding the bucket. He didn’t seem quite able to process Crowley’s presence, or quite able to believe it was real.

“Why are you out here alone?” Crowley said. “How far are you from home?” 

No answer. 

But - Crowley’s heart pounded - something all at once seemed familiar in the boy’s face. In the angle of his nose, the shape of his brow. The hollowness of his cheeks brought out the similarity all the more.

All at once Crowley dropped the bucket and sank to his knees. “Are you - are you _Warlock?_ ” 

The boy still couldn’t speak. For several seconds he only stared at Crowley, and Crowley stared back and could see more and more of Harriet’s face in him every second. Then, at last, he gave a little nod and dropped his arms. 

The truth of the situation closed around Crowley like a slammed door. This innkeeper he’d been sent to find, the person Harriet had entrusted her son to, hadn’t been caring for him at all. This boy wasn’t living on ten francs a week. He wasn’t living on a single sou, and he didn’t have a coat, and the innkeeper had sent him out to get water in the woods at dusk. 

That was the kind of person this innkeeper was. And they’d lied about Warlock being sick, too - he was thin, malnourished, certainly, but not sick. So all their bids for money had been nothing but a trick.

And Harriet had spent all that time working for money…

Crowley pulled off his cloak and wrapped it around Warlock’s shoulders. The night wind was piercing, but at least he had long sleeves. “Warm up in that, all right? I’ll help you get this home.” 

Warlock swallowed. His voice, when he finally spoke, was thin and brittle. “Who are you?” 

“I’m…” how much to explain? Why hadn’t he asked himself that earlier? “I’m a friend of your mother’s.”

“My mother?” Warlock blinked. “Is she coming to see me?” 

Crowley sighed. “She’s… she’s not.” 

Warlock’s eyes narrowed, scanning Crowley’s face as though attempting to read the truth in his eyes. There was a certain shrewdness in his expression, as though he’d already grown used to adults lying to him. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

What could he say? What was the right way to tell a ten-year-old stranger in the woods that his mother was dead? Crowley nodded.

“They said it would happen soon,” said Warlock. “Beez did. They said no one could live the way Harriet did for long.”

Beez - that must be the name of the innkeeper. Crowley scowled. What kind of person said that to a child?

“They told me they’d turn me out when she died,” said Warlock, his voice still matter-of-fact. “When she can’t keep paying, they can’t afford to keep me.”

Fear of the police, of whatever forces might be after him, had flown far from Crowley’s mind. The feeling of being adrift and pursued had condensed into hard, blazing fury - fury at Beez, this innkeeper who’d taken Harriet’s money and abused her child - and then solidified into something else, something he felt when he looked into Warlock’s face and remembered what he’d come here to do. Something like determination. 

“Well,” said Crowley, straightening up, “who needs their hospitality?” 

There was cruelty in the world, cruelty and injustice and pain that had come close to overwhelming Crowley plenty of times. But this particular cruelty was in Crowley’s power to do something about.

He picked up the bucket. “Lead me to the inn.” 

_____

The Sergeant de Waterloo was a filthy place, the hearth low and ashy and the tables small and cramped. Crowley almost had to stoop to avoid his head brushing the ceiling. Beez looked as though they’d made themself at home here long ago; flies buzzed around their hair as though they’d nested there. They fixed a glare on Crowley the moment he came in, and it didn’t change throughout Crowley’s explanation of things.

“So you won’t have to take care of Warlock anymore,” Crowley was saying. “I’m taking him off your hands forever.”

Beez’s face didn’t change when they spoke. Their voice was a monotone, almost like the buzzing of the flies. They betrayed no emotion, but their eyes bored into Crowley’s like an accusation. “That’s a little harsh, monsieur.”

“Why?” said Crowley.

“Well, I’ve raised him as my child, haven’t I?”

Crowley glanced at Warlock. He was lurking by the wall, apparently trying to make himself invisible. He still had Crowley’s cloak around him and it made him seem even smaller, even skinnier than he really was. 

“I’m sure it’ll be a terrible blow,” said Crowley drily. “But I made a promise to his mother.” 

“And can you _prove_ that, monsieur?”

“Haven’t you gotten my letters?” 

“They could be lies.” Beez’s eyes narrowed slightly; the rest of their face remained still. “I’ll need some assurances your intentions are correct.” 

This was the kind of person, Crowley decided, it was important to stay away from. Those calculating eyes looked like they were breaking him down into coin-sized pieces. If they found out there was a price on his head, they’d stop at nothing to hunt him down and hand him over. He’d better be quick about this.

“This belonged to his mother,” he said, pulling Harriet’s locket out from under his shirt. He’d been keeping it around his neck to be sure he didn’t lose it. “Maybe you’ll recognize it.” 

Beez’s expression gained a note of excitement - of hunger - when they saw the locket. They reached out a hand for it. “What’s it made of?”

“I don’t know.” He didn’t let go of the chain when he let Beez examine it. Beez scowled, but didn’t attempt to snatch it away. 

“Well,” they said, “you could compensate me for my loss, at least.”

“How?”

“Oh, you know.” They fixed him with that calculating glare again. “Something to make me feel better.”

They wanted him to pay them for Warlock. Crowley glanced at the boy again, still looking like he wanted to vanish. It made him sick, but for Warlock’s sake and his own, he’d better get this all over with quickly.

“Here,” he said shortly, and pulled from his pocket a stack of notes. “Will this be enough?”

Beez sniffed at the notes, running their fingers over the edges, counting them scrupulously, once and then again. Then they looked up at Crowley with a face that for all the world could have been carved from marble.

“He’s been very expensive to care for,” they said. “He’s often ill.” 

Fury exploded full-force into Crowley’s mind again. He grabbed another stack of notes and crumpled them in his fingers. If Beez wanted to bleed him, that was just fine - he had more money than he even wanted anyway - but if they were going to spout those kinds of lies, act like they’d ever cared a day for Warlock, they didn’t deserve any more conversation. He flung the notes at Beez’s feet.

“There,” he snapped. “Happy?”

Beez didn’t answer. They were already crouched down to pick up the money. 

Crowley turned away. “Come on, Warlock.” 

The fury was still coursing through him when he reached out to take Warlock’s hand. But Warlock, who had been watching like a wraith from a corner for the whole conversation, took Crowley’s hand unhesitatingly, confidently, and all at once the fury met a wave of something else. 

“We’re leaving this place forever,” he said. “All right?”

Warlock nodded. “I don’t want to come back.”

Crowley’s voice grew soft again, gentle. “You want to get something to eat before we leave town?” 

He nodded again, and there was a trace of a smile on his face as Crowley opened the door to the inn, exposing them both to the cold night air. It was harsh, but, like the air at the docks of Montreuil-sur-mer, it was clean. 

His own position as an outcast, a fugitive, a castaway, was distant now in his mind. The panic he’d entered these streets with seemed so far away it was like they belonged to someone else. 

Warlock spoke again when they reached the end of the street, out of sight of the inn. “Are you going to be my papa now?” 

Crowley knelt down to look him in the eyes. Any mistrust in them had long since vanished; he’d trusted Crowley instantly, instinctually. Crowley couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. And - just like with the bishop - he hadn’t even had to tell the boy his name.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, if you want.” 

He’d be better than he was with the bishop. He wouldn’t be so cynical. It was like he’d told Aziraphale, there at the very end, above the water - yes, there _were_ people he could still believe in. And he still believed in kids. 

Then Warlock stepped forward and hugged him. It was sudden, unprompted - Crowley froze for a moment, shocked, as Warlock’s arms wrapped around his waist and his face buried in his chest. For someone so starved he was remarkably strong. Crowley couldn’t think what to do; how did you respond to the boy who was now your son hugging you for the first time? 

But then the thing flooded through him again, warm like an ocean wave somewhere far to the south, and Crowley stopped thinking. He wrapped his arms around Warlock too. He hugged him tight and close, and he wondered how long it had been since the last hug like that. For either of them. 

“I think I’m going to like you better,” Warlock mumbled.

Crowley smiled. A real, genuine smile. “I hope so.” 

There really were reasons to keep fighting.


	5. Interlude

A man stood outside the convent gates. He was dressed like a gentleman, but he looked tired and wary, and he was holding the hand of a boy dressed in little more than rags. He was shivering and stamping his feet against the night wind.

“Should I go and fetch him?” Sister Grace whispered. “He looks like he’s been out all night.”

“He looks like he’s on the run from something,” Sister Theresa said. “See how he keeps looking around? That’s no way for an honest gentleman to act.”

“Oh.” Sister Mary sighed dreamily. “Imagine if he’s some gentleman thief!”

Sister Theresa’s eyes narrowed. “Do you want a thief in here?”

“It would be exciting, wouldn’t it? Something to chat about.”

“You never run out of things to chat about.”

“Well, this _is_ the Chattering Order.” 

Sister Theresa waved her hand. “If he’s a thief, we shouldn’t have him on the premises. We don’t want our silver disappearing in the night.”

“He doesn’t look at all like that kind of man.” Sister Grace put her chin in her hands. “Not dressed like that. And anyway, he’s got a child - and that boy’s so _thin_ , gracious, I can see his ribs from here.”

“And where’d he get that boy?” Sister Theresa challenged.

“I suppose that’s just the birds and the bees,” said Sister Mary.

Sister Theresa glared. “You know what I mean. Where’s his mother?”

“Something happened to her, I expect,” Sister Grace whispered. “Some great tragedy. Maybe she was the one taken by the law. Oh, mysterious strangers are the very _best_ kind.” 

“I’m well aware you think so.” Sister Theresa rolled her eyes. “All right, Sister Mary, go out and bring him in if you must. But I’m not responsible if he’s something worse than a poor man in fine clothes.”

Sister Mary squeaked and hurried to the door. “Just imagine if he’s got _witch_ blood in him!” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You always say that, but the first time a stranger comes to our door and enchants all our statues to turn to gold, _I’ll_ be the one to have let them in and I’ll be the one to get to tell the story.” Sister Mary darted out into the cold, and the rest of the nuns watched her hurry toward the gates.

Sister Theresa gave a hard look at the boy. Her face softened a little. 

“Sister Grace,” she said, “go and make some hot soup. That boy needs caring for.”


	6. Stars

_Eleven Years Later_

Aziraphale had always loved the stars. Plenty of times in his younger years, in darker, filthier corners than those he now frequented, he’d strained his eyes out of windows to glimpse them in the night sky. They seemed so bright, so far away that the pain of this world couldn’t touch them - and they did no one any harm, didn’t burn like the sun, didn’t make waves like the moon. They marched in perfect order through the sky and gave light. He’d found himself wishing desperately to live up among those stars.

He didn’t see much of them these days. 

“The poor are getting more restless every day,” said Gabriel, looking just slightly over Aziraphale’s head as he spoke. “We need to call more and more men every day to keep them in check.”

The sun had yet to rise, and as long as Gabriel wasn’t quite looking at him, Aziraphale was trying to get a glimpse out the window. Maybe he could see a few stars in the paling sky before dawn proper. He spoke distractedly. “Yes, monsieur.” 

“There are more thefts than ever.” Gabriel’s voice was impassive, bland; he might have been talking about the number of clouds in the sky. “Beggars accosting the wealthy on the street. Clogging the way for carriages and making everything inconvenient.”

“Yes, monsieur,” said Aziraphale. Was that a prick of light in the murky sky above Gabriel’s shoulder? 

“And you’d better be on the lookout for witches, as well.” Gabriel scowled, but only slightly, the way someone might at finding a fly in their soup. “They’re gaining numbers all the time. It’s really a pity we don’t deal with them today the way we did in the old days. But as it is, Aziraphale, it’s your job to keep them out of sight of honest people in whatever way you can.” 

“Yes, monsieur.”

Gabriel suddenly fixed Aziraphale with a full stare. Aziraphale took his eyes from the window, from any last-second sight of the stars, to meet Gabriel’s. He tried to communicate as much attention as possible in his expression. Beneath Gabriel’s bland smile, there was a hint of a glare in the slant of his brow.

A part of Aziraphale, a small, hard, noisy part, clamored to tell Gabriel that if they really wanted the number of thefts and witches and inconvenient beggars to go down, they ought to be trying to help the poor instead of beating them into the shadows. The words danced at the back of his mind like an itch he was unable to scratch.

“You understand your duty?” said Gabriel.

“Yes.” His mouth felt practically numb with the repetition. “Monsieur.” 

That voice was stupid and treacherous and wrong, of course. Of course the laws of all of France knew better than he did; who was he, a lowlife raised up only by Gabriel’s generosity, to question them? But it was a voice Aziraphale had been unable to shake his head clear of since he was a boy. It was a voice that had nagged at him all those years overseeing the chain gang, watching the convicts labor below him, under orders to report those who lagged in their work. Despite all he’d ever been told - quite rightly, he was sure - about the kind of lazy, malicious, self-serving people who ended up in hard labor, the voice wouldn’t ever stop. 

He’d had plenty of practice choking it back by now, though. He’d been the model of obedience for eleven years. He hadn’t stepped out of line once since… well, since last time. 

“You’re accumulating more and more responsibility all the time, these days,” said Gabriel. “More and more respect.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “I - I know.”

“Obviously, I expect nothing but the best from you.” 

“Of course.” 

Gabriel smiled, mouth widening and widening until it looked like a wolf’s grin. “I trust you won’t let a single criminal slip through your fingers. Since, obviously, you know the consequences of that.”

Aziraphale dropped his eyes, focusing them on Gabriel’s shoes. He clenched his fingers together behind his back. He forced the voice down his throat, down past his chest into his stomach. He knew the consequences well enough. 

Abruptly Gabriel stepped forward and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “So, go out and clean the streets. I’m depending on you.” 

Aziraphale made a little bow as he turned to exit. He never knew how to exit Gabriel’s presence properly; he always found himself hanging his head, feeling weighed down and as though he’d be better off crawling. It must be the effortless authority that rolled off Gabriel’s every look, every word, every stance. It must be how confident he was in his own rightness, how secure, when Aziraphale had never been secure in anything. 

What did Aziraphale have to do to be like that? How long would he have to work before he could be perfect? 

He passed out into the streets of Paris with a brisk, rhythmic step. The sun was still barely brushing the horizon, but it was a warm day, nearly June already, and his uniform chafed a little in its heaviness. He felt the weight of his pistol a little heavier than he should. Before coming to Paris he hadn’t carried a pistol, but Gabriel insisted on everyone having them these days. 

People fell out of his way as he went by. Beggars who reached out imploringly toward other passing people drew back at his approach, concealing wailing babies in their chests and turning wary eyes on him until he was out of their sight. He tried hard not to mind it. That was what it meant to be an enforcer of the law. 

It hadn’t always been this bad. Maybe it had been, in Paris; his time in Montreuil-sur-mer had seen some people turn to him for help, though Gabriel had seemed far more interested in finding out the witches than anything else. But no one seemed to dare ask him for anything nowadays. They shrank back and kept out of his way. They were desperate not to draw his individual attention. 

Would it be better if they begged to him as they did to the rich? He didn’t have anything to give them. He didn’t own anything. 

Aziraphale shook his head and set his eyes forward. That wasn’t what he should be thinking about. It was the voice again, and if he knew anything about how to become like Gabriel, it was to leave that stupid voice behind. 

He was rounding a corner when he saw the dog. 

He wouldn’t have noticed it at all, if it wasn’t accompanied by a sharp cry from within one of the carriages on the road. The dog was leaping from the back of the carriage, and Aziraphale saw it when someone reached out as though attempting to snatch it up again; it looked, at first, like someone’s escaped pet. But only until Aziraphale noticed its coarse, matted gray fur.

“It stole our lunch!” shouted someone from the carriage. “It’s a thief!”

Before the dog disappeared into an alleyway, Aziraphale saw it was carrying the handle of a picnic basket in its slavering jaws. He quickened his pace. The carriage had halted and beggars were drawn to it almost on compulsion; he sensed the start of a conflict. He approached the alleyway where the dog had disappeared and squinted down it. On the other side he thought he saw it plunge among a group of people.

He advanced along the alley. It was four people, three boys and a girl, all young enough to be students; one of the boys had knelt down and was scratching the dog behind his ears, whispering congratulations to him. Two others were opening the basket and grinning at what they found inside. 

Young ruffians, Gabriel would call them. He’d praise Aziraphale for catching them. Aziraphale clenched his jaw and steeled himself.

But when he was close enough to hear their voices, the boy with the dog had just snatched half a loaf of bread from the basket and tossed it away from him.

“There, take that home to your family,” he said, to someone Aziraphale couldn’t see. “And - hold on - just a minute and we’ll get you a paper too.” 

The girl was pulling stacks of folded paper from a bag over her shoulder. As Aziraphale drew close enough to see the whole scene, he realized several beggars were crowded around the little crew; the students were already passing out the rest of the food, pieces of bread and fruit and cheese that offered a welcome sweet smell to the street. With each handout they pressed a paper into each beggar’s hands. The beggars unfolded and examined them with apparent eagerness.

Aziraphale glanced back through the alleyway. The carriage had already moved along. He doubted they’d even noticed him, and must have figured the basket was gone. Aziraphale could still apprehend the thieves and force them to give the food back, but…

He shook his head. He ought to apprehend them. Stealing was wrong no matter who needed the food more. And what right did they have to unleash their dogs on honest people? If Gabriel were here, he’d drag every last beggar back until the basket was a perfect whole again, and he’d track down the people in the carriage, and as for the thieves… 

But Aziraphale had paused too long. The first of the beggars had already disappeared. The basket was nearly empty. The boy who’d been petting the dog had stood up and was talking to another boy, empty-handed, only attempting to give him one of the papers.

“You’ll want to take a look at this,” he said. “If you’re interested.”

The second boy’s face was just as eager as anyone else’s, as he scanned whatever was written on the page. “This is incredible.” 

“You really think so?”

“I wish I’d thought of it.”

In another moment the food was gone, but there was still a stack of papers left. Maybe… maybe Aziraphale should try to discover what was written on them. Handing out papers wasn’t illegal, but if they were thieves, they couldn’t be up to any good with them, could they? If he approached and told them he’d caught them stealing, they’d have to tell him what they were doing. 

Gabriel would blame him if they caused trouble. If the theft of the basket got back to him, if the family in the carriage made a report, that would already fall to Aziraphale, but if there was more trouble than that Aziraphale would start to look incompetent.

_You know the consequences of that_. Aziraphale swallowed hard and emerged from the alley, preparing his voice to sound threatening. 

But before the students had even looked in his direction, another sharp cry diverted his attention and theirs.

_“Hey!”_

His head snapped up. On the far street corner a beggar had jumped up and grabbed a gentleman by the front of his shirt. The gentleman had been the one to shout, and he was pushing back against the beggar now in apparent alarm. Aziraphale pushed past the students and the rest of the crowd, and they fell back, finally seeing him.

“Police!” the boy cried, and his dog barked as though in affirmation, and the rest of the street fell silent.

But the beggar still had their hands on the gentleman’s shirt. They hadn’t even glanced away at Aziraphale’s approach. “Stop pretending! You know me, we’ve met each other before, you stupid bastard -”

“Get off!” The gentleman, who had gray hair peeking out from beneath his hat, was stronger than he looked; he managed to shove the beggar away. But the beggar, a short, dirty-faced someone with a twisted scowl and a torn coat, clenched their fists and prepared to swing at the gentleman. 

Aziraphale rushed forward to stand between them, holding out his hands on either side. “Stop!” 

The beggar didn’t fall back. They didn’t betray an ounce of fear at Aziraphale’s appearance. “Don’t look at _me_ , he’s the one you should arrest!” 

Aziraphale turned only slightly toward the gentleman, catching his face, which still betrayed alarm. “Don’t worry, monsieur. I saw you didn’t do anything wrong. No one’s getting arrested, only -”

“You ought to!” The beggar strode forward and jabbed a finger at Aziraphale’s chest. “You don’t know what he is! He ruined me a decade ago, he’s the reason I’m out on the streets, he took my son away from me!”

“What?” 

“He took my son! And he’s a _convict!_ ” 

Aziraphale glanced back again at the gentleman, to ascertain he was just as confused by the words as Aziraphale was. He expected to find his eyes right where he’d left them, right where the gentleman had been standing seconds before. But his gaze caught on empty air.

He was gone. The street was suddenly quiet; the group with the dog was hurrying away with their stack of papers, the other beggars had hidden themselves away, and no one was making any sound except the gentleman’s assailant. 

Aziraphale’s stomach clenched. 

“There,” said the beggar smugly. “Told you.” 

He’d expected this to be an easy dispute to solve - something, at least, to show Gabriel he’d accomplished this morning, the rescue of someone distinguished from accosting on the street - but the gentleman had disappeared the second Aziraphale had stepped in. Or rather, the second this beggar had told Aziraphale he was a convict. 

“Who…” Aziraphale turned back to the beggar. “Who are you?”

“That’s not your business.” They glared up at him with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. “I’m just someone who’s been robbed, that’s all - but that’s none of the law’s concern.”

“It is, actually, monsieur.”

“Oh, _monsieur!_ ” They sneered. “Well, if you happen to meet that so-called gentleman again, and get him back to the chain gang where he belongs, you can say it was Beez that found him out. _Monsieur_ Beez, if you’re going to doll it up. Does that satisfy you?”

“What reason do you have to believe he’s a convict?” 

“He _robbed_ me.” They spat on the ground. “Stole my son. Told me he was an honest man there on business from the boy’s mother, and I found out later there was a warrant out for his arrest.”

Something stirred in Aziraphale’s mind. The image of the gentleman’s face, which he’d glimpsed so quickly before, flashed over his eyes again. 

“He took a child from you?” Aziraphale said weakly.

“ _My_ child. My property.” 

“What was the child’s name?” 

“How’s that your business?” 

Aziraphale looked back again; the street was practically deserted. Dread was churning in his stomach. Could it be - after all this time, all these years - here, in Paris, right under his nose, could it _possibly_ be -

“If you want the name of the man,” said Beez, “you should have asked. He calls himself Monsieur Crowley.” 

_Crowley._

Aziraphale stepped backward in spite of himself, his heartbeat loud and hard in his ears.

_Crowley. The convict. The friendly face in the witches’ den, when Aziraphale had snapped, had given in to the voice for once, had given away his coat and then helped Harriet to safety - the gentle face in the hospital, when he’d told Aziraphale he did the right thing, when he’d eased Aziraphale’s fears of what Gabriel would do to him if he knew - the anguished face in the courtroom, blurting out his confession - the smile at the window - that fire, that blazing fire in his eyes -_

“Where did he go?” Aziraphale said urgently.

“How should I know?” Beez leaned back against the wall of the building behind them. “You want me to do your job for you? Go and find him if you want him.” 

He should. Of course he should. 

_Crowley, an acquaintance of three days who he’d let down his principles for. Crowley, who he’d faced Gabriel’s consequences for, that day eleven years ago when he’d come back empty-handed from the hospital._

But he’d been stupid then. He’d been weak. He’d deserved those consequences. 

_And now…_

“You can go about your business,” said Aziraphale vaguely, and practically ran up the street. 

_____

The Pont au Change was quiet as the sun dipped below the horizon again. The Seine was dark, reflecting back the deep blue of the sky straight above. The stars were too small and too dim in the city to be reflected within it. When Aziraphale looked up, though, he could glimpse a few.

He’d have to be going back soon. Gabriel always wanted him back before the last of the light left the sky. But this was the only other time of day he got to catch any sign of the stars. 

Day followed day here in a plodding, monotonous way. Tomorrow he’d be up with the dawn again, sent out once more to keep the streets clear; another day of marching past the needy so they’d keep out of the way. Another day of glares from shadows and silence and fear. Of course there was a reason for all of it, of course he understood it was necessary to maintain order in the city, but it was bleak, exhausting work all the same. 

The law was his guide. Every step he took was laid out by the law. Stepping out of it had only ever led to disaster, and he was determined not to be led to that ever again - determined he would never bend to that nasty voice in his head.

He let his eyes rove over the darkening city. Antoine Crowley was out there somewhere with Harriet’s son. Running from that path, from light and from order. From him. 

Aziraphale had already been back to report to Gabriel once today. He’d told him about the group handing out papers, and Gabriel had scowled again in that strangely detached way - the way that showed something in front of him didn’t satisfy his senses. Aziraphale had fidgeted under his gaze. But Gabriel had simply thanked him for the information and dismissed him; he hadn’t deigned to explain what he suspected the papers meant. Maybe he figured Aziraphale would be more vigilant if he didn’t know. 

When he came back this time, he’d have to tell him about Crowley. About _Crawley_ , as he’d have to call him, to remind Gabriel of the convict he’d lost track of back in Montreuil-sur-mer. What to say, how to begin that conversation? Without making it sound like he’d let Crowley go a second time, how to explain he’d been behind him one minute and vanished the next? 

_Why tell him?_ the voice said, but Aziraphale ignored it.

Of course he knew where the voice came from. He understood it well enough, this irrepressible sympathy with beggars and convicts and lowlifes of every kind. It was because he’d been born among them, because he was _from_ them, from the same gutter they still inhabited. Because he still remembered being in their position, the bastard boy in the jail, the one who no one wanted until Gabriel came along.

Of course he knew that. He turned his eyes up again and fastened them on the single star visible in the gathering night. Of course he knew he couldn’t really understand the path of the righteous.

He’d looked up at the stars as a child. On dark nights back then more were visible, and he’d willed away his own hunger and despair by getting lost in them, filling his eyes and his mind with their stark silver light. He’d map the constellations, taking comfort in their endless familiarity. He’d give them his own names when he didn’t know what they were called. Sometimes he’d imagine them in families; when he felt the most alone, he’d pick out two of them to be his parents.

The stars were heaven to him. And whenever he dreamed, he dreamed of climbing up someday to live among them. 

A summer breeze made the blackening water ripple below the bridge. Aziraphale shivered. It was time to return; he didn’t have all evening to stare at the sky and reminisce. He’d tell Gabriel about Crowley, and tomorrow he’d prepare for how to go about tracking him down. Of course this would be up to him; his failure had led to Crowley’s freedom, so he would be responsible for his recapture.

Aziraphale sighed. Of course it was just. Of course it was right. And yet…

He’d still been young when Gabriel had found him. Gabriel had appeared in his life like a meteor; his perfect posture, his spotless clothes, his pale hair and even paler eyes, had made him seem like someone not from Earth at all. He’d smiled in that way that seemed perfectly symmetrical, crafted with aesthetic rather than humanity in mind, and he’d plucked Aziraphale out of the gutter without even dirtying his gloves.

Aziraphale had looked at Gabriel and seen a star. One of those spots of light in the darkness, keeping perfect order and harmony, marching in those perfect patterns he knew so well. When Gabriel took him under his wing, Aziraphale had felt like he was ascending the first of those steps that would lead him to the sky he’d imagined - a world without pain, without fear, without doubt and shame and ugliness. He’d followed Gabriel because he believed Gabriel could take him to the heights of the sky.

Yet Aziraphale had held himself back. With his reservations, with his sympathies, with his doubts, he’d held himself back. He hadn’t lived up to Gabriel’s expectations. He’d let criminals slip through his fingers. He’d let the voice of his past mar all his attempts. And so he was still Earth-bound even now. 

Earth-bound. Laboring day by day under Gabriel. What did he have to do to reach Gabriel’s level? How much longer until he could touch the stars? _How much longer?_

The wind was getting colder. It had been cold in Montreuil-sur-mer, too, on that long-ago weekend. 

Aziraphale glanced up at the single star again. A cloud had covered it. The sky was low and dark, as it so often was in Paris, and he had no way of guiding himself up towards it. Abruptly he felt tears stinging the corners of his eyes. 

Low and dark. That was his world and always had been. The air pushed him down, and the ground pulled him. Trying to reach the heavens was a constant struggle against his nature. 

He’d never been enough on his own. So he’d follow Gabriel, even when he felt unable to, even when he didn’t understand. He’d obey his every command. He’d believe in Gabriel, believe in the rightness of everything he’d taught Aziraphale, step at his every word, jump at his every gesture. He’d be the model upholder of the law. He’d been nothing before Gabriel had found him, too low even to deserve his mercy - all that he was, he owed to Gabriel. He’d repay that debt. He’d let Gabriel shape his identity. He would be Gabriel’s law.

And someday he’d live among the stars. 

And Crowley…

Aziraphale dashed the unshed tears from his eyes, angry with himself. Well, Crowley had fallen, hadn’t he? He’d chosen the wrong path. Like one of the angels who’d sided with Lucifer. And he’d tried to tempt Aziraphale to do the same, eleven years ago - tried to get him to fall into those eternal flames, the same ones Aziraphale could see in his eyes. So of course they had to be enemies. Of course any mercy on Aziraphale’s part could only end in disaster. 

Aziraphale clasped his fingers tight together and squeezed his eyes shut. He had to find Crowley and put him behind bars again. That was the only way to the sky. That was the only way he’d ever be good enough.

“I’ll find him,” he whispered. “I won’t fail. I swear it.” 

The sun vanished beneath the Seine. Still no stars above. 

It was time to go. 

______

“Where have you been?” Gabriel demanded.

Aziraphale didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. I was out later than I intended. But I -”

“You don’t set your own hours.” Gabriel’s eyes flashed. He was seated at his desk, not even standing, looking as though Aziraphale’s entry had been some unprecedented offense. “I’ve been waiting for you. I have important information. Was I supposed to wait all night while you decided whether or not to report to me?”

“I’m sorry.” Aziraphale swallowed the lump in his throat. He wanted to cry again, stupid, weak thing that he was. “I’m sorry, monsieur. But I have new things to tell you.”

“I have things to tell you too. You’ll have new orders starting very soon.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth in surprise, then shut it again. Gabriel’s voice was dismissive; it didn’t seem to invite a response, and he didn’t seem interested in Aziraphale’s report. He’d stopped even looking at Aziraphale. His eyes were fixed on a paper on his desk, reading it as though its contents were more interesting to him than Aziraphale’s entire existence.

“You’ve done a pretty poor job of keeping the streets in check,” Gabriel said, almost casually. 

Aziraphale’s stomach dropped. “I - what?”

“I imagine you had no idea this was going on under your nose.” Gabriel stood suddenly and snatched up the paper, shoving it into Aziraphale’s hands. “Go on, read it. The police force is going to be diverted from its usual duties soon.”

Aziraphale looked down. Words were printed in broad, clear lettering across the top of the paper. He took them in slowly, processing their meaning only over the course of several seconds, before thoughts of Crowley fled entirely from his mind.

“It seems,” said Gabriel, “that we have a revolution on our hands.”

**Author's Note:**

> Like my content? Find me on tumblr @[whatawriterwields](https://whatawriterwields.tumblr.com)!


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